Okay, so two things tonight would cause me to be described as a bigot. One will remain a wink between me and one new reader who I believe may be reading this tonight.
The second is in our next Housing and Central Services Committee (HCSC) Agenda (Item 8). By the way, here’s the HCSC minutes and agenda index.
Okay, so before we read it (like you were going to!), let’s discuss some background.
There are two types of racist in my humble opinion:
There is the stereotype (who is hard to find, actually) who believes that black people are inferior, that they shouldn’t be employed if they come to an interview, that they should not be allowed to use the same buses etc, etc. Let us call them ‘old Tories’.
Then there is the more common type: the do-gooder. They say “Ah, you have [insert colour here] skin so you are less able to obtain training than a white person” or “Ah, you have [insert colour here] skin so you need more careful treatment” or “Ah, you have [insert colour here] skin so you must need help speaking English” (Hands up those who thought I should have copied and pasted some of that.). Let us call this, more common and thoroughly more underhand and manipulative racist ’socialists’.
So socialists (read Ken Livingstone or the person who introduced the legislation allowing this) are the ones responsible for some of the measures that our Council must make.
In Item 8, then, there is a survey of Council Tenants in Adur District Council. Apparently ‘ethnic minorities’ (you know, the ones the socialists believe are less intelligent) answered the survey differently to white people. Just to be clear an ethnic minority can only be non-white — the proper definition of the type of respondent the government required us to identify is “black and ethnic minorities (BEM) (excluding white minorities)”.
Scroll to the last page and you will find the bit that has got my goat. This is the ‘Action Plan’ as a result of the survey’s findings:
Black Minority and Ethnic groups are less satisfied with opportunities for involvement in management and decision making. Action – further investigation is required and efforts made to include members of BME groups in tenant participation.
So, basically, a statistical anomaly that should never have been measured throws up something vaguely interesting and the answer is to ’solve it’? Erm no.
I am quite sure no-one is sending letters to white tenants only. I am quite sure no-one is turning black people away when they offer to participate. And even if they were, I’m positive a survey is not the best way to find that out!
To put it to a test I telephoned a tame ‘ethnic minority’ and asked them what they thought.
Warning, the next paragraph contains swearing that is necessary because it is a verbatim quote. If you don’t like it, skip it, okay?
When asked whether we should do this the tame (tame because socialists tell me they are less intelligent etc.) EM said “Why are we collecting that information? Like anyone gives a shit.”
And why did I quote an EM? Because in this ultra PC (but we took their great, great, great grandfather’s land to grow sugar plantations on, sob) modern era, I couldn’t say that myself without being described as an ‘old Tory’. And let’s be honest, if I was one of those, how could I have tamed that stupid (the socialist’s intimation, not mine) EM in the first place?
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#1 by Alexander Fear on September 28th, 2007 - 11:38 am
No, not racist at all.
I think it’s about time that we realised skin colour has nothing to do with your vulnerability or ability to get a job.
I dare say there are some from ethnic minorities who feel patronised, and others who are intelligent and able, quick to take advantage of these special privileges.
I think as long as you recognise race positively, there is always going to be racism. 30-40 years ago maybe it was needed, but only as a temporary measure.
If skin colour really doesn’t matter, why all these forms and surveys?
On the other hand, perhaps they need to take a look at their own government contractors before telling the rest of us how we should go about business- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-65BuRY4Sp4
#2 by MJW on October 1st, 2007 - 10:01 am
I refer to the situation you describe as paternalistic racism, the only people who really benefit from it are the apologists who propagate it. At it’s root is a soft social-liberal mentality that refuses to allow people to be responsible for themselves, so whenever there is a social problem there has to be an excuse to make it either the fault of a convenient scapegoat or failing that the nobody’s fault. So where a grouping may exclude themselves from opportunities because of their own choices, the shifting of responsibility required by the paternalists/apologists means that they are excluded by some form of “oppressionâ€. This isn’t to say that there aren’t real forms of oppression, more that much of what is lumped in this category is imagined oppression created out of expediency. The negative effect of this approach is that the underlying problems are never addressed, because that would require an acceptance of responsibility and that’s just not acceptable to the paternalists. Of course there is a positive side effect for the paternalists, because by not addressing the real problem it perpetuates and they maintain their positions, it’s a vicious cycle but one that suits those who claim to care most about stopping it. I suppose, in a rather ironic way, the paternalists are more than anybody else “the oppressorsâ€!